LEAD US NOT INTO PENN STATION

Winner of the Colorado Book Award; runner-up
for Best Book, American Library Association

"Sets up an evocative counterpoint of loaded terms. Ducker's feeling for detail is impeccable."
—Boston Globe

“A story about love, respect and the Brooklyn Dodgers.  More than the year’s snappiest title...LEAD US NOT INTO PENN STATION is a beautifully written book that will make you remember a simpler America.”
—Denver Post

“A vivid, compelling and beautifully crafted book. Bruce Ducker is a hell of a writer.”
—Dave Barry, author of Tricky Business

“Ducker's craftsmanship gives us the simple essentials of a good story: first he creates people we care about; then he makes interesting things happen to them. He has a strong eye for detail and has mastered the art of having the reader sense the world through the eyes and ears of his characters. There are fine, bittersweet portraits. Thanks to Ducker's loving, nostalgic artistry, we find not just truth -- but the texture, depth, and dimension that convey an authenticity beyond the literal."
—Barry Bernson, Gannett Newspapers

“Who’d have thought an attorney could write so lyrically, so allusively, so in tune with the quotidian?… A fine piece of work. Ducker brings [the landscape] singularly, almost cinematically alive.... Loved the book.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Genuine and often moving….Ducker makes his underlying theme--uncompromising youth refreshing world-worn adulthood--absorbing and compelling.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A rare and fine novel.  It has the quality of Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep brought up to date.”
—Stephen Longstreet

“Ducker writes with the easy charm of William Saroyan.”
—Kirkus Review

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The year is 1955, and the world of Danny Meadoff spins with ease and stability. Eisenhower is president, soul groups are black, NBA stars are white. Fathers do not speak with sons. The Dodgers have jumped out to an early lead and look to meet the Yankees in the Series. And, according to the universal plan, to lose.

Everything is in its place. Or is it?

The father of Danny’s best friend has become a philanderer. The sax player on Flatbush blows notes that are not in the songs. There is talk—inconceivable, but talk nonetheless—of the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. Danny’s world seems to be wobbling in orbit. Most worrisome, in this summer when time suspends and loopholes dimple the laws of probability, is the shadow. Late at night in Danny’s backyard, a shadow appears.

Or does it?

Lead Us Not Into Penn Station is a picaresque, a tale that follows three young men through the rapids of loyalty, stasis, and mutability. Comic and nostalgic, it tells the story of a boy’s redemptive love for his father.